Cadets claim crown
La Salle’s hockey team tops Shenendehowa in 2OT thriller to win first hockey championship since 2001
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. » It was 16 years between championships for the LaSalle Institute Cadets Tuesday night at the Achilles Rink on the Union College campus, but the 2016-2017 championship run started last year.
It came to fruition on Kevin Mainello’s double-overtime goal — 23 seconds into the second extra session — that crowned the Cadets Section II, Division I champs.
“I think the difference with this group was that everyone in the core group was here last year and at the beginning of the year last year we had a really good team last year, but the first half of the season we couldn’t score,” LaSalle coach Tim Flanigan said. “We were just snake bit.
“That last half we played really well, we knocked off Bethlehem, we started scoring and the kids really came together at the end of last year and we just picked up right from there last year.”
The maturity of the Cadets paid off as they withstood two power play goals and a surprising fivegoal output by Shenendehowa to capture the title, 6-5 in the second overtime Tuesday night.
“The fact that we scored five goals is not like us,” Shenendehowa coach Juan de la Rocha said. “We put up a five spot against CBA, but we’re not a team that is going to score four, five goals a night, especially against the No. 1 seed, but that’s how the game played out.
Just a few days after the Oscars were given out, the most recognizable statue in motion pictures would have to be re-cast into two awards for both ice hockey teams for the category, best supporting cast for each squad.
Shenendehowa captain Hayden Haldane was held without a goal, assisting on just one, but saw his second and third lines come up with four goals against the topseeded Cadets.
“Sam Mulson’s line did a great job, we put them out on (Hayden) Haldane’s line to try to give (Logan) DiScanio’s line a little bit of room to get going and they did,” Flanigan said. “I’ve got a great captain in Logan DiScanio is just an outstanding captain and Sam Mulson is an unsung hero,
he doesn’t get all the points that the first line gets, but he anchors out second line and he’s so exhausted right now he can hardly stand.”
Mulson knew that his line could make the difference Tuesday night.
“It makes you want to step up even more, it makes you want to do just that much more for your team,” Mulson said. “It’s an unbelievable position to play against him, he’s an unbelievable player, he knows what he’s doing, he’s a very skilled player, he’s very hard to shut down. Fortunately we shut him down enough tonight and we got the win.”
LaSalle struck first on a goal by Mulson four minutes into the contest before Shenendehowa answered with two straight tallies, a power play goal from Relyea and Zach Rupert.
“We didn’t play well in the first period, we were standing still and I can’t be more proud of my guys the way they turned the game around in the second period,” Flanigan said.
The Cadets responded with two straight goals, Christian Rudd from DiScanio and Mainello nine minutes into the second and then the captain, DiScanio tallied his lone goal, a short-handed goal with two and half minutes left for the 3-2 lead.
The third stanza turned into a shootout as Shenendehowa scored three goals to get five in a game for only the sixth time in 23 games, including a pair of routs of Niskayuna/Schenectady.
Marson knotted the contest at three goals apiece one minute into the third period and sophomore Brennan Alheim put the Plainsmen ahead, 4-3 on a power play goal 40 seconds later.
LaSalle junior Ryan Murray knotted it at 4-4 less than five minutes before Mulson scored the potential game-winning goal with three minutes left. With just over 90 seconds left, however, Relyea tied it again at five to force overtime.
The five-goal night was as much as a surprise for LaSalle goaltender Zac Rentz.
“I had faith in my team and faith in our systems that we were running, just faith in myself,” Rentz said. “Letting up five is out of the realm and doesn’t happen often, so when it happens it’s a shock, but we dealt with it, dealt with the adversity and just battled back like we knew we could.”
He admitted that he had his own doubts.
“It was crazy, I thought when we went down 3-2, ‘Oh, what are we going to do now?’ We battled back, we surged back, we played one of our best third periods and overtimes ever,” Rentz said. “I can’t thank the coaches enough, can’t thank my players enough, we’re a family and we battled back. It was great.”
The Cadets’ captain saw one of his squad’s goals come to fruition Tuesday night.
“We started in February with our off-ice conditioning and we said to ourselves that we would be playing at Union for the section championship and that’s been our goal all year and tonight it finally paid off, all the hard work that we went through,” DiScanio said.
LaSalle will travel to Section X to take on Massena, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 4 at the Massena Arena. The Section 2/10 winner will then head to Buffalo for the NYSPHSAA Final Four and face the winner of Ithaca (Section IV)/Pittsford (Section V), 5 p.m. Saturday, March 11.